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lifesaver and James,
even as an outsider to the Greek system, many of you know by now, I have always wondered about the same thing and I totally agree with you in my continuing puzzlement.
Some people asked about alternatives and I would like to share my personal experiences from my system in Germany with you.
We have something like continuous open bidding - even though it is more like: a candidate comes, is interested, and applies. Usually he gets accepted and what follows is a year of pledging or "membership on trial" during and after which the guy can leave or get kicked out (actually you can get kicked out later too, but that is beside the point). That way you don't pass on anybody who is interested but you can also check him out for an extended period of time.
If it wasn't for COB the German fraternity/sorority syestem would probably be down to very few chapters in a few organizations from over 1000 chapters Germany-wide right now.
Quotas are non-existent. It is up to the chapter to make the best out of itself. If the guys suck, they deserve to die! I have experienced my chapter to nearly die - no pledges in 2 years!! - because of quarrels among the actives. Then, they pulled themselves together and now they are back in business and are in good standing! It was a cleansing process and the chapter profited from it.
One thing fraternity chapters with too many pledges did in the good old days at the beginning of the 20th century (more then 25 was considered too many): the would form a new chapter, with actives and pledges at the same university (which is possible in our system). Our experience is that the bond becomes stronger with smaller chapter numbers of up to 50-70 guys.
And nowadays, when a chapter is in danger of folding, members of other chapters are actually encouraged to transfer to that school and help out.
I hope that was interesting, looking forward to a continuing debate and more interesting comments and clarifications.
Matt
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